Here we are, on the road: We’re in Desert Hot Springs, California

Sunday, January 2, 2011 Lorraine’s report

Wow, was that weird. First time I’ve written the new years date. We want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, again.

We’ve left the bay area and our daughter, Susy, and grand daughter, Kaitlyn and moved to Desert Hot Springs, Catalina Spa and RV Resort. There were plenty of tears, and it was sure hard to leave them. Thank you Susy and Kaitlyn for sharing so much of your precious time with us, we both appreciate everything you both do for us!

Last Sunday found Susy and me running to the mall late morning to try and find some Hallmark stores. She decorates her Christmas tree each year with Hallmark ornaments and tries to get a few each year after Christmas, when the prices are about half off or more.

Chuck watched Kaitlyn for us, and we were finishing up when I got a migraine at the last stop, Kohls. It came on hard, and I didn’t have my medicine with me. Susy took me right home and I took the rest of my medicine. But by then the migraine came back two more times before it finally left. I can’t even remember the last time I had a migraine. Needless to say, the kids went home and I went to bed.

Monday, Susy and I had more returns and running to do. Rich, my son in Prudhoe Bay building the Ice Road, called and said a part to his IPOD had broken and he needed a part to fix it. Off we went to get the part, box it up and mail it out; he got it within 2 days. Then we went on to do our other running.

Dinner was at Chili’s with Susy, Mark, Kaitlyn and us.

Tuesday was put away “Christmas” decorations day. I started by cleaning out my closet, then under the bed and everywhere else any stuff for Christmas was stashed. Kaitlyn wanted Nana to give her a “tubby”, so I did that also when they came over. Susy took all the ornaments off the tree and packed up everything for me. Chuck got the storage boxes from Mark’s house earlier and returned them once we packed everything away. Thank you both for all your help.

Following that, Susy and I again had more returns/running and took off in the torrential rain that had started. We weren’t out too long as I got tired and it was cold and wet. We had In N Out for dinner.

Wednesday was play time with Kaitlyn in the morning. She had spent the night and wanted to play with Nana. We played until 10:30 and then got ready to head out for an early lunch. We took Susy and Kaitlyn to 5 Guys for lunch, then more errands. They hadn’t been to one before and both of our gals enjoyed it very much.

Then off for more errands, before heading home. This was our last full day there with our girls and we tried to make the most of the day. We ended up at Andy’s BBQ for dinner later on.

Susy, Kaitlyn and Mark are going to see Stanford play football at a bowl game in Florida and were leaving Friday. We didn’t want to be alone, so we decided to leave Thursday. We were packed up and ready to leave by 9:30 when Mark came over with Micky D’s for us for breakfast and a calendar he makes up for us of just pictures of Kaitlyn from the current year just starting; thanks Mark.

Susy and Kaitlyn came right after that, we ate and then we said our goodbyes; let tear time commence. I don’t know why it is so hard to leave my girls, but it is!!

While we were leaving, Chuck got a call from friends, Joe and Alice. They were a day ahead of us at the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield. They were supposed to be leaving Thursday, but the Tehachapi Pass had closed due to high winds/snow. Joe called us to let us know that we should make a reservation at Orange Grove RV Park, because it had sold out the night before. I called and they said I had a confirmed spot for the evening.

Wrong! We pulled in at 3:30 to find we had a post to an electrical outlet for 50 amp only. No water/sewer and Chuck had to unhook to back into the spot to reach the electrical post, and the front door was in the mud. By the end of the evening, every nook and cranny was filled with RVer’s and big rigs. We set up as fast as we could and hurried over to Joe/Alice's friends 4:00 o’clock Happy Hour.

It was nice to see some of the couples we had met the previous year at Yuma lights and to meet the newbies. We had leftovers from Andy’s for dinner. Joe and Alice came over and watched the WA Huskies win with Jake Locker from Ferndale, which is just outside of Bellingham, WA. Thanks Joe/Alice for taking good care of us. I was happy to have 50 amp since it was going to be in the upper 20’s for the night.

Friday the word was the Tehachapi Pass had opened, so the exodus from Orange Grove RV Park began early. We reached Desert Hot Springs by 1:30 pm, and tried to find a spot and set up.

The spot we found looked good, fairly level, but upon hooking up to the electrical post, Chuck discovered that the electrical was not working right. We told the park worker that had given us a jump to the dead car battery after we unhooked, and he said to go to the front gate and let them know there.

We did and a few minutes later an electrician came by and worked on the post. We didn’t have to move. I have to say the 3^rd thing to go wrong was the television would not come on. Chuck had to take the front apart and check the electrical connection and put everything back. What a way to end the old year.

Dorothy/Tom had invited us to go to the Elk’s Lodge for prime rib dinner with dessert with them; so we threw ourselves together and we were off.

We enjoyed a very nice dinner with Tom/Dorothy, Dorothy’s sisters, Dessa who is 89 and still loves to dance, Mary, who had just lost her husband and needed to be with loved ones and Dorothy’s niece, Melissa and another friend, Pat. Thank you everyone for ringing in a new year with us. We enjoyed a great dinner and good company. Thank you Tom/Dorothy for setting this all up and getting our tickets for us, we appreciate all you do for us.

Saturday found us up bright and early and at Dorothy’s home by 5:45 to go the Rose Parade with a friend of hers from her church. Joe has gone to the Rose Parade for the past 44 or 45 years. He has it down to a science, where to park, what to bring and when to get there.

We followed Joe into Pasadena, parked and walked 4-5 blocks to wait for the parade. We had about an hour wait, as we were close to the end of the parade. The front of the parade starts at 8 am. It came by us about 9:30 and went until 11:45 am.

But, and this is important; we did this all without spending a fortune to go to the parade. We had gone to a presentation on the Rose Parade put on by Fantasy Tours at 1000 Trails and they wanted $2500 for 2 people for 4 days to park at the Race track in your coach, 30 amp, no sewer/water, 2-3 meals a day plus a bus ride to get to the parade and bleacher seats and a New Years Eve Party. Now that is a lot of money!!

We were situated about 5-6 back from the front seat, we brought step chairs to stand on to see better, and we didn’t have to pay for bleacher seating, we brought our own chairs for before the parade.

I loved going to this parade, it was cold, clear and sunny, and traffic was incredibly light going into LA. Every year while growing up my family watched this parade on television. I have wanted to go ever since I can remember.

I was not disappointed! It was as grand as I thought it would be! Thank you Chuck, Dorothy, Melissa, Joe, Ray and Kay for sharing this day with me; special thanks to Dorothy for setting this up and to Chuck and Dorothy for making a dream come true for me!

We stopped at The Soup Plantation/Sweet Tomatoes for soup, salad, etc; after the parade, it was so good. Going home I crashed, I bet I slept most of the way, I was so exhausted.

What an exciting end to our Christmas Holiday! Thanks go to Susy and Kaitlyn and all our friends who made it so special for us.

Until Next Time…..Lorraine

1/2/11 Chuck’s report

Ok, it’s a new year and all so what new resolution should I break and when? Hell, how about if I just don’t make any, that way I don’t have to break it? Sounds good to me. Here’s hoping you can keep any you made.

We had a good week except for having to leave our daughter and grand daughter when we headed East. We tried to spend as much time as possible with them before we left. Kaitlyn wanted to spend almost every night with us too, that was fine with us even though she is a bed hog and kicks a lot.

Susy was on vacation this week so she and Lorraine got to do some shopping, if I remember right, they managed to get out everyday for something. They even managed to drag me along a couple of times, kicking and screaming like a little kid.

We also managed to take down our Christmas tree and decorations, put them in a box and store it in Mark’s garage once again. It sure is nice to have a place to store all that stuff down here vs carrying it with us all year, thanks.

We didn’t miss too many meals this week either, we had burgers from In N Out and 5 Guys, pizza one night, Chili's Tex/Mex restaurant and back to Andy’s Bar-B-Q too. And of course, Lorraine cooked for us too.

The weather in the Bay area was wet once again this week but still not as bad as what they got in Southern California and even some places North of us. We are hoping to get out from under the storm clouds now that we are here in the desert even though it may get a bit colder at night out here. Plus we’ve had a couple of days that the wind blew pretty hard, not bad enough to pull in the slides but I’m glad we didn’t have the awnings out.

Thursday was moving day for us and Susy, Kaitlyn and Mark were all planning on coming by to see us before we got on the road. We had everything put away and were in the process of dumping our holding tanks when they showed up, with McDonalds for breakfast too, thanks Mark. It’s always a sad occasion when we leave, even if our plans are to be back in a couple of weeks, This time, we know we won’t be back for almost 6 weeks so it was a bit harder but we had to leave anyway.

Before we got on the road, we got a call from our friend Joe who was at the Orange Grove RV park in Bakersfield, our planned stop for the night. He informed us they were there and the Tehachapi pass, about 30 miles to the East, was closed due to high winds and blowing snow. He said lots of folks were staying over an extra night and the place was busy and suggested we should call and make a reservation, if possible. Lorraine got on the phone and was able to get us a spot for the night, whew, it would have been hard to find a place with all the folks staying over due to the closed pass.

One thing about all the rains we’ve had, the hills are showing lots of green instead of the usual browns we see. Should be a good spring for wild flowers too, we hear.

We had a pretty uneventful trip over and once we got to the park, they had folks escorting everyone to their site, a first at this place for us. Even though Lorraine had made a reservation, we still ended up parked alongside the road and had to share utilities with someone already in a site. We were able to get one where the folks were only using the 30 Amp plug so we could use the 50 Amp but we didn’t have water or sewer hookups, luckily we had enough water on board and empty holding tanks so we didn’t have to have water/sewer hookups for one night anyway.

But it did get cold that night, it was below freezing so our heat pumps didn’t work. We had to run our Hydro Hot boiler for heat all night, not a problem but it does make noise when it runs and we were in pretty close to the other folks in their sites, but at least we kept warm. Once we got set up, Joe and Alice came by for a short visit and invited us over to a friend of theirs for a happy hour when we were ready. So we got to visit with Alice’s brother and his wife, Vic/Barb and two of their traveling couple friends. A good time with them with everyone checking the weather report for the pass for the next morning.

But by bed time, the reports were still bad, closed due to high winds for an undetermined time. We sort of wanted to be across by the next day so we decided if the pass wasn’t opened, we would head South and travel through Los Angles and catch I-10 instead. But as luck would have it, the winds died down during the night and the pass was open when we got up. We said our “see ya laters” to Joe and his friends, they left a bit before we did.

Our trip though the pass was pretty once again uneventful, the only problem we encountered was a bit of water on the road and one small stretch of ice on the road. There was a fair amount of snow on the hills and some on the side of the road but the traffic that was ahead of us had cleared the road pretty well. The only problem was there was just enough water/muck to get the coach dirty again. Oh well, I hope to take some time and wash it while we are here.

We managed to get to the park we are staying at even though our GPS led us astray once again. It told us to go to an empty field about 6 miles away so Lorraine called Dorothy for directions. She stayed on the phone with us until we got to where we turned off, thanks Dorothy. Now that was the first problem of the day, the second was when we started to unhook the tow car, we found the battery was dead, I forgot to pull the fuse when we left. That’s what happens when you get in a hurry, I guess. Anyway, we got a quick jump from a worker in the park and found a place to back our coach into. But once we got in place, I hooked up the power cord and found that leg 2 only had 2 volts instead of the normal 120. I drove back to the guard shack and asked if they had any maintenance workers on staff. His reply was, it’s New Years Eve and we gave everyone the afternoon off, best find a different spot.

So we headed back and started looking for a new site when lo and behold a maintenance guy drove up in a golf cart. He said they called him and asked him if he would check out our power supply even though he wasn’t actually “on the clock”. He found a loose wire and tightened up our plug in and got us good power so we didn’t have to move again, yea. Now we all know that bad things happen in threes so we should be good, right? But no, it seems we still had one more bad juju left in 2010. Lorraine got the satellite set up and turned on the front TV but it didn’t come on, the back one worked just fine. This is the new one we had just installed earlier this spring, surely it wasn’t bad already. Once we got everything else set up, I got out the tools and pulled it out of its cabinet and checked the power supply cords. Everything was good but we found it would start using the buttons on the actual TV instead of the remote. These buttons are not accessible when it is installed in the cabinet but at least we know the TV works. We put it back in place and just for giggles we tried the remote again and it worked just fine, yea.

So finally we got a chance to rest for a couple of minutes before we had to get ready to go to the Elks for New Years Eve dinner/party with Tom/Dorothy and Dorothy's two sisters, Dessa and Mary and her niece Melissa and a friend Pat. We had a very good time with them, a good prime rib dinner and were entertained by a guy with a Karaoke machine signing all kinds of music. We stayed there until midnight, East coast time that is, before we called it a night.

We had made plans to go to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena on Saturday morning with Dorothy. A friend from her church has gone to the parade for the last 40 odd years and has the whole thing down pat. He knows where to go, when to there, where to park and where to set up to see the parade without paying some of the exorbitant prices charged by the tour companies. We got up and were at her house before 6 am, very early for us that’s for sure. We followed Joe as he drove over to Pasadena, about 2 hours away, parked and got set up to watch the parade when it came by. It ended up we were in a very good spot to see the floats, bands and such, only about three or four people deep from the curb.

We were close to the ending spot of the parade, about 4 miles from the beginning. I sort of figured everyone would be tired and would slow down but they were still going strong as they passed us. We all really enjoyed the parade, the first time for us. The floats were great, the band good (although some of them need some instruction on how to march together) and the music good.

I heard there were over a million folks at the parade but we only had to fight through about 400,000 of them when we left. Joe said we wouldn’t be able to stay together when we left, too much traffic and people but we had made plans to meet at a salad/soup place a couple of miles away. This place was very busy and we saw Joe and his other friends but didn’t get to talk with them before they left. But we are grateful to Joe for allowing us to travel with him and use his expertise on dong the Rose Parade. And of course, a big thank you to Dorothy for setting it up and driving us to/from also.

So after two days of travel and one long morning at the Rose Parade, we took the rest of the afternoon and evening off and just rested, much needed by both of us.

Our plans have us staying here until the 6th when we will move over to the 1000 Trails park, about 10 miles away. That is also the day that our friends are scheduled to arrive in the valley too, they will be staying in a park close to where we are now. We will stay at 1000 Trails for two weeks and hope to show our friends some of the sights in the area while we are here together, their first time coming South for the winter. We will also be doing a couple of day trips to the FMCA rally in Indio.

The weather has been cooler than normal here in the Palm Springs area, got down to freezing on Friday night but at least it’s a dry cold, ha. The forecast calls for a couple more days of cool temps with a possibly of rain tomorrow but warming up for the rest of the week, yea. And for Rob and Rick, the forecast for the Tehachapi pass is for sunny skies and warming temps on the 5th and 6th when you should be coming through there. A forecast for Redding shows sunny and no freezing weather when you should be going through there too, hope all this comes true and you have a good trip down. Looking forward to seeing you good folks soon, drive carefully and keep in touch.

And now to add some pictures and get this posted. I’m sure I’ll probably add too many pictures of the parade but rest assured, I have more if you want them.

Who says a 5 year old can’t act silly sometimes??